PFD error, state’s response vexes parents

From when the PFD filing period opened on Jan. 1 to Jan. 12, there was an error with a date on the state’s signature page, according to Sarah Race, director of the Permanent Fund Division within the Alaska Department of Revenue.

She said that “one of the bulleted items on the certificated language had a 2014 date instead of a 2015 date.”

The error only applies to children’s applications, Race said. Parents who signed the forms between Jan. 1 and Jan. 12 will have to re-sign, which can be done online. More than 10,000 Alaskans, not all of them parents, applied in the first two weeks of the filing period.

The error was corrected after Jan. 12, and those who applied after the fix aren’t affected by the problem.

Residents who are affected don’t have to submit a new application, only re-sign the submitted application. The state is alerting people by email, Race said.

Ketchikan parent Carena Wood said her daughter’s application was one of those caught by the error.

At first, she worried she was being scammed.

“What better way to put the fear into everyone?” Wood said of targeting the PFD. “… You could go really far on a phishing scam with that.”